I picked up my Model S on 3/24, with Textile seats and Tech Package. I was pleasantly surprised to discover I had seat memory and heated seats, both of which I thought were part of Leather seats.

OhioOwner | April 3, 2013

Did you place your $5,000 deposit befor or after 12/31/12?

Tesla-David | April 3, 2013

offramp,
Did you get your car with or without the price increase? I got my car on 1/2/13 with Textile seats and Tech Package and none of those features. I have been working with Tesla over the past month to get those features for my car. My understanding is that seat memory, seat heaters only come with the price increase adjustment.

shs | April 3, 2013

I picked up my MS on 3/16 with Textile and Tech and it did not have the new seats. I paid the original pricing.

stevenmaifert | April 3, 2013

Seat memory is part of the driver profile. I wonder if all elements of the driver profile are being moved to the Tech package, or just seat memory.

Sudre_ | April 3, 2013

I am curious how they are going to handle this with updates. Will those who did not order the tech package last year loss features once the car updates? Guess we'll find out.

offramp | April 3, 2013

I placed my reservation after the 12/31/12 price increase. The DS mentioned during the walk-thru that orders after the new pricing was in effect included the heated seats even with the Textile seats. I'm not sure if it requires the Tech package, which I have.

hfcolvin | April 3, 2013

I'm pre 12/31 textile seats with tech package and no driver settings, no heated seats. I actually had a change of heart about the heated seats after finalizing but couldn't get the upgrade done. I was hoping the heated 12-way seats might slip through the cracks anyway but no dice. I also don't have reverse tilt mirrors. My VIN is 5990 which is a bit lower than a lot of cars delivered around my time of early March, so I wonder if they started production on mine earlier to use up the old style textile seats.

I would like driver settings and tilt mirrors, which seem to be more "techy" than leather comfort, so hoping maybe that will be a software upgrade one day.

shs | April 3, 2013

As I indicated in the thread on Interior Choices, I have been told that critical hardware necessary for the support of Driver Profiles was not included with the original textile seats and therefore activation of the missing features in software will not be possible.

jat | April 4, 2013

@shs - I am sure the seats don't have the necessary hardware, but that doesn't mean they couldn't have other things saved in the profiles.

@htcolvin - are you sure you don't have reverse tilt? You have to adjust them while you are in reverse when you activate it.

shs | April 4, 2013

@jat - Agreed that the seats don't have the hardware, but I was sure expecting that the other parts of the Driver Profiles would be functional, especially the mirrors and reverse auto-tilt. My wife and I are constantly swapping driving responsibilities.

I was informed by ownership when I enquired about this, that not only was the CPU that manages Driver Profiles missing in my car, but when I asked about adding it, I was told that the wiring harness for my car didn't have the necessary wires or connectors to support that CPU. I was shocked, as when I was finalizing my config it was suggested that I talk with service about an upgrade after receiving the car. Plus the car I demoed had textile seats AND driver profiles active. Now I am afraid that future software releases might not support my now orphaned config.

Who knows what the truth is about this but eliminating ALL aspects of the Driver Profile feature from my car for all time, seems sort of arbitrary and painful. I have an 85 with Tech package, Pano Air and Sound, so I wasn't going cheap here. I love the car, but this has me very frustrated with Tesla!

ddruz | April 5, 2013

Attempting to get clarity on this issue I emailed Walter Franck, ace Tesla rep, on Apr 3 asking:

-- Is seat memory now available via the tech package regardless of textile or leather seats?
-- If someone orders leather seats without the tech package do they no longer get seat memory?
-- When did the change come about for people configuring their cars?

Here is his Apr 4 reply:You are correct. Going forward, driver profiles (memory seats and memory mirrors) will be part of the Tech package. All seat options (textile and leather) will have 12-way power adjustments and heat included as a standard feature.

For new orders: Even with Nappa leather, the tech package will be required for memory functions. This change is new to our updated reservation and purchase process that was released earlier this week.

The change appears to be effective with all new orders as of April 1. According to this reply only cars with tech ordered after April 1, whether leather or textile, will have driver profile memory. I infer, however, that leather seat cars without tech ordered before the April 1 change will still come with driver profile memory. And, as posted above, some textile cars with tech reserved after Jan 1 may also receive driver profile memory as a non-advertised bonus.

IMO this is a brilliant change. The Tech Package is a pricey at $3750 and this beefs up its value. Textile seats will now have all options available to them that leather seats do. Very few people will likely pass on leather that would have gotten it before the change and those that do will have a stronger incentive to pay even more for the tech package.

hfcolvin | April 5, 2013

@jat : I have tried adjusting the mirrors in reverse and they stay that way when back in drive. Also, I don't have the button in the controls menu. I'm still on 4.2 and was holding out to see if anything magic happened with the upgrade before calling Tesla.

stevenmaifert | April 5, 2013

@ddruz@aol.com - I have to take issue with your last paragraph my friend. Tesla has always marketed Model S as a premium vehicle; even the base model. Migrating what used to be standard to optional dilutes the notion of what is premium. This is a cost cutting move no matter how they try to spin it and further pressures those who might have otherwise taken a pass on the Tech package to now spend the $$$.

shs | April 5, 2013

@steven

I agree completely about the marketing approach. That is why I am very disappointed that just because I wanted (original) textile seats, I have now lost forever ALL Driver Profile features, including Auto-Tilt mirrors, even though I also purchased the Tech Package, Air, Pano, Premium Sound and an 85 kWh battery. Not a base model by any means.

ddruz | April 5, 2013

@stevenmaifert and @shs - I completely agree with you both that the base Model S should come with many more standard features than it does. This is just our opinions, however, and not the way Tesla chose to do things.

To clarify, driver profile memory was never standard equipment. It was originally not available with the standard textile seats under any circumstance. It was always a sub-option, originally bundled with the leather seats.

Tesla is now bundling driver profile memory for new orders with the tech package instead of the leather seats. It is still a sub-option, but now bundled with a different major option.

By bundling driver profiles with the tech package those people getting textile seats now will have the ability to get driver profile memory, something not previously possible.

Those new buyers who are less well off than earlier buyers are those opting for leather seats but no tech package. Those original buyers who are less well off than new buyers are those who ordered textile seats with the tech package, like shs.

@shs - If you originally had auto-tilt mirrors in reverse and they have disappeared with a recent firmware update, reports on TMC indicate you can simply ask a service center or ranger to reinstate them. This is an apparent bug in some recent firmware updates.

GeekEV | April 5, 2013

This also clarifies seething that I struggled with and debated with Tesla over - which is that the owners guide clearly stated that the driver profile (INCLUDING mirrors) was part of the napa leather package. But in reality it was only partially there. The seat and steering wheel memory worked, but my mirrors did not. Turns out, that's because the electrochromatic mirrors are required for mirror memory and those are only part of the tech package - which I didn't order. There was much confusion over this because some people told me one thing, while others told me a different story. They even tested non-tech package cars and one person said mirrors worked, one said they didn't. This is because early cars all got the electrochromatic mirrors installed, tech package or not because that was all Tesla had on hand. At some point before I got mine, they actually started shipping the standard mirrors (as always intended) and found out that the mirror memory didn't work with them. So now they had a problem where part of the memory required the leather package and the other part required the tech package. It makes sense to move it all into the tech package since usefulness of the memory profile is sort of stunted without the mirrors. After discussing my disappointment with Tesla, about a week later we came to a mutually satisfactory understanding... It's change may well be part of that.

GeekEV | April 5, 2013

"something" not "seething"

Tesla-David | April 6, 2013

shs,
I configured my car similar to yours. Opting for textile seats had nothing to do with cost, but a personal preference. Had I known that the necessary hardware to enable upgrading the textile seats was missing and that Tesla had already elected to upgrade the textile seats with leather seat functionality after the 12/31/12 price increase I would have waited to get the newer version. Unfortunately I knew none of this at the time I configured my car, and no-one at Tesla at configuration mentioned it or cautioned me. That is my major beef, and I am very upset with Tesla for that ommission. Now I am on a quest to get my car restored to the condition I expected. The original tech seats with virtually no features (lumbar support, heat seaters, etc.) are painfully apparent to everyone who gets in my car and have been much discussed. They expres their dismay as do I that in a $90k car, they somehow expected more. A Ford C-Max I rode in last week had most of the features missing in my seats at 1/4th the cost. I intend to continue aggitating on this until someone gives me a path to fix my car. I am willing to pay to have the newer textile seats installed, but if additional wiring hardware is needed that was not included at initial build, how does that happen? I have communicated to Tesla that I want to have a discussion with them about my issues. Many on this forum spend much more time than I keeping up with the latest Tesla developments. Unfortunately I do not have the time to closely monitor the internal happenings at Tesla 24/7 so was woefully uninformed at configuration (Oct/Nov 2012). As an early adopter and strong believer in Elon Musk's vision for EVs, I think Tesla owes us a path to get our cars to the equivalent standard in cars being delivered today relative to the Textile seats.

shs | April 6, 2013

@ddruz,

I have a feeling I am beating a dead horse here, but I have to argue with one point about Driver Profiles always being associated with leather. During our first test drive in Menlo Park we spend a fair amount of time discussing auto-tilt mirrors and driver profiles as my wife and I are of very different heights. And then our sales person said, "And this is our no animal products interior, our vegan option". Yes the car we test drove had the textile interior AND Driver profiles.

When trying to finalize I was given the option of paying an extra $1500 for leather or $2500 for the new textile with the same features. I hesitated, as that didn’t seem fair. I offered to pay $1500 for the new textile, but it was $2,500, no negotiation.

On the next phone call on the subject I was told that it was too late to switch to the new seats as a VIN had been assigned, even though it would be weeks before that VIN showed up on my Dashboard. I was told twice during various calls that I could likely negotiate with service for upgraded seats after I got the car. Never was it mentioned that the car would be built with a wiring harness such that upgrades would never be possible. That just seemed wrong from about every point of view, including the ability for Tesla to support the car in the future.